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GRADE

TITLE & SYNOPSIS

AUTHOR

K

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes

When Pete the Cat wears his new white shoes while walking down the street, stepping into piles of strawberries, blueberries, and other messes, his shoes change colors.

Eric Litwin

1

Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse

Lilly loves everything about school, especially her cool teacher, Mr. Slinger. But when Lilly brings her purple plastic purse and its treasures to school and can't wait until sharing time, Mr. Slinger confiscates her prized possessions. Lilly's fury leads to revenge and then to remorse and she sets out to make amends.

Kevin Henkes

2

Officer Buckle and Gloria

Officer Buckle's safety presentation at Napville Elementary School is always ignored. It's so dull, in fact, that it puts audiences to sleep. Z Z Z z z z z... But soon, children are paying attention...to Officer Buckle's new police dog, Gloria, who stands behind him, impishly miming the dire consequences and accidents involved in not using one's head. Buckle is surprised to see the children suddenly so attentive, even applauding and laughing, and each time he checks on Gloria, she is sitting at attention.

Peggy Rathmann

3

The Stories Julian Tells

Julian is a quick fibber and a wishful thinker. And he is great at telling stories. He can make people—especially his younger brother, Huey—believe just about anything. Like the story about the cats that come in the mail. Or the fig leaves that make you grow tall if you eat them off the tree. But some stories can lead to a heap of trouble, and that's exactly where Julian and Huey end up!

Ann Cameron

4

Frindle

Fifth grader Nick Allen knows just how to make school cooler. In third grade, he transformed Miss Deaver's room into a tropical paradise with some paper palm trees and a sandy beach. In fourth grade, he taught his classmates to mimic the high-pitched calls of blackbirds. But now, in fifth grade, he's come up with his most ingenious idea yet. After learning about the origins of words, he decides to change the word pen to frindle . At first, it seems like a harmless prank, a way to annoy his dictionary-obsessed teacher. Then the whole class starts using the new word, and the joke spreads across town like wildfire. Suddenly Nick finds himself in the middle of a media frenzy over frindle. Will Nick emerge from the controversy a troublemaker or a hero?

Andrew Clements

5

The Mighty Miss Malone

Twelve-year-old Deza Malone has a close and loving family, and she's the smartest girl in her class in Gary, Indiana. But times are tough, and it's hard for black men like Deza's father to find work. Desperate to help his family, Deza's father leaves town to look for work, and soon Deza, her mom, and her older brother, Jimmie, are setting off in search of him. Along the way, they experience many Depression-era hardships, including living in a shantytown and riding the rails, all the while never giving up the hope of being together again.

Christopher Paul Curtis

6

Wonder

August Pullman is not an ordinary ten-year-old kid. Sure, he's a huge Star Wars fan, he loves his dog, and he's got a pretty good sense of humor. But August was born with a craniofacial abnormality — a genetic defect that caused his facial features to be severely deformed. His life has never been "normal." Despite his differences, August and his parents decide to transition him from home school to private school now that he's entering fifth grade. It's the start of middle school, they reason, so everyone will be new. But August has to deal with so much more than just being new. Will he make friends? Will he decide to stay at the school? And can the people around him learn to see past his appearance? This brilliant, sensitive story — narrated not only by August, but also by his older sister, his classmates, and other kids in his life — takes an insightful look at how one person's differences can affect the lives of so many others.

R. J. Palicio

7

Monster

Young, 16-year-old Steve Harmon, an amateur filmmaker, finds himself facing the death penalty for the murder of a Harlem drugstore owner. A Coretta Scott King Author Award Honor Book.

Walter Dean Myers

8

Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra

Tess loves math because it's the one subject she can trust—there's always just one right answer, and it never changes. But then she starts algebra and is introduced to those pesky and mysterious variables, which seem to be everywhere in eighth grade. When even your friends and parents can be variables, how in the world do you find out the right answers to the really important questions, like what to do about a boy you like or whom to tell when someone's done something really bad? Will Tess's life ever stop changing long enough for her to figure it all out?

Wendy Lithan

9

Elijah of Buxton

The first child born into freedom in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves just over the border from Detroit, Elijah is best known in his hometown as the boy who threw up on Frederick Douglass. (Not on purpose, of course — he was just a baby then!)
But things change when a former slave calling himself the Right Reverend Zephariah W. Connerly the Third steals money from Elijah's friend Mr. Leroy, who has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the south. Elijah joins Mr. Leroy on a dangerous journey to America in pursuit of the disreputable preacher, and he discovers firsthand the unimaginable horrors of the life his parents fled — a life from which he'll always be free, if he can find the courage to go back home.

Christopher Paul Curtis

10

The Other Wes Moore

Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence? Wes Moore, the author of this fascinating book, sets out to answer this profound question. In alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

Wes Moore

11

Three Little Words: A Memoir

Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system. Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative, humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed – and in doing so, discovers the power of her own voice.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter

12

Jubilee

The daughter of a plantation owner and his Negro mistress struggle to survive in the war-torn South. Here is the classic--and true – story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and his black mistress, a Southern Civil War heroine to rival Scarlett O'Hara. Vyry bears witness to the South's prewar opulence and its brutality, to its wartime ruin and the subsequent promise of Reconstruction.

Margaret Walker Alexander